My Event Routines (and Recovery!)

Hey, all, it's Brendan. And I'm in Puerto Rico recovering from one of my hardest, most difficult fall tours of my life and one of the most difficult events that I even do in my entire career. And yesterday I sent out an email to my newsletter list kind of describing literally how I prepare and recover from one of the most difficult seminars to deliver in the entire world. And it got such an amazing response. I thought I'd share with you here in the vlog about what my routine is and how I prepare for doing a really difficult thing and how I recover from doing something that's really difficult. Because I know you've got stressful things in your life and you've been pushing and you're working hard, and sometimes it's just like, how do you manage it? How do you prepare for something that you have to really excel at? For me, my five day training, called certification week, is where I certify the world's top level life coaches and business coaches, and basically we teach them how to become a certified high performance coach, which is kind of considered, you know, the Navy Seals of life coaches and business coaches. It's an incredibly rigorous, academically validated curriculum that we work through for five days. And to give context, it's just me. So if, you know, just on stage, just be on stage. So imagine if, you know, you've ever given an hour long presentation and you lost your voice or you got tired or you realized, you know, how much preparation it takes to give that hour long presentation. Imagine 45 hours. So that's what I do. In the course of five days, I'm basically on stage and standing and training and working or running role plays or running the event for 45 hours. And it's brutal. So people always like, how do you pull that off? Now I'm on day three of my recovery right now, so I've just gotten my voice back up to speed so I can do a video like this. But I thought I'd share with you what I sent to my list in terms of my routines and my recovery. And I started the email with, you know, few people realize that so much joy and bliss can come from doing incredibly hard things. Most of the industry considered, you know, considers a certification week the most difficult training in the world to deliver for a single trainer. Because I don't have an mc, I don't have other speakers. Even if I bring up coaches on stage, I'm still on stage running it. And even if I put people in role plays, I'm still running the role plays. So it's incredibly difficult for five days and I have to really prepare for it. It's never ever been easy for me. And lots of people say, why don't you get out the trainers or MCs or people in there? I said, because you know what, this is like my marathon. In fact, you know, I've worn these things across my chest and on my, you know, on my wrists and my hands to track my vital signs. And essentially I literally am running a marathon every single day for five days. That's my caloric output. That's, you know, how much energy I'm having to project. So I got to prepare like that and it's super hard. So here's some things that I do that, that would serve and just sharing like how disciplined the routine has become because it's not easy. And so here's what I do. I always mention to people, you know, all the preparation that goes into something like that is really based on how you live your, your whole year. You know, it's not like suddenly I start training for pulling off a marathon. I mean, I'm staying in shape. I'm practicing all year. I do eight other live events throughout, throughout the year. I'm always speaking to you guys on video and in my courses and my live casts and on social media. So I'm always kind of in motion teaching and practicing and that's a big piece of what makes it possible for me. But three weeks before my event, I do a couple things. One, I start changing my workout routine from basically lifting to long cardio or activities. Maybe I'm swimming out in that ocean, maybe I'm doing more cardio based activities. I'm doing a whole lot more really aggressive hiit based, like high intensity training because I need really big lung capacity to pull off five days. I incorporate a ton of mobility work, a ton of yoga work. I got to be flexible, especially in my hips. Because when, if you ever watch somebody on stage, they're not really walking side to side, they're kind of, their chest is always facing the audience, but they are walking side to side which puts on this real big torque on their, on their hips, which is really hard to do after five days. You know, 45 days prior to the event, I start trying to put on some weight. Some of you guys can see I'm skinnier now because when I do my events I might drop 5 to 10 pounds because it's so intense. Just like if you ran a marathon, you know, for five days. You got to imagine it's going to put a lot of toll on your body. I spend a week in my off hours before the event really going through every worksheet, every detail, every role play, every break, everything that I'm going to do throughout the five days to get my head into the curriculum. Because we go through over 90 pages of curriculum. To give you an idea, it's an incredibly difficult seminar to train on. About two weeks out, I cut out alcohol, I cut out coffee, I cut out, you know, any sugars, I cut out bread. I don't always nail that, but in generally, you know, for the last, you know, decade of my career, I get really clean the two weeks going into an event. Sometimes I cheat if I'm with friends or something like that. But in general, I'm pretty good about that. I review all my notes and all my student surveys from the years prior so that I'm really looking for those distinctions that make the biggest difference. You know, I actually personally design on my computer all the handouts, all the presentations, you know, every single worksheet that we do so that I'm intimately familiar with what we're going to be moving through for the five days during the event. Here's kind of my routine. Every morning I wake up, I do, you know, about 15 minutes of mobility and yoga work, calisthenics, just get my body open and moving. Then I do about three sets of squat presses where I got about 35 pound dumbbells that I travel with. Literally at these events, they, they bring them in a big road case with all my clothes in them. And I'm just basically doing the squat presses and I'm doing three big sets of those to just kick on the hormones and get ready for the day. Breakfast is like a three egg omelette, lots of avocado, spinach, blueberries. I also do coconut milk with a protein shake, about 20 grams of vegan protein, which is really important because I got to start putting in the calories and the protein really quickly. I do vocal warm ups for about 20 to 30 minutes, just like I had to do before I this video with you, because I haven't spoken for three days. As you'll hear about some vocal warm ups. If you saw me backstage, I'm constantly moving and doing calisthenics and doing shadow boxing. Backstage, I'm doing qigong to open up my meridians and my energy. You know, I manage everything backstage so I can stay very mentally clear and prepared to serve. I have a backstage manager and friend named Mel Abraham who, he's there with me and he's on radio so he can call out to our team, you know, we literally call the whole show from backstage what music to play, when, what's going to come up next, how long the next session is going to be. And he's on radio with the team and so that way the team can also deliver messages to him and he can tell them to me because I'm not on radio and I don't allow anyone backstage so I can stay in the right mindset. Mid morning and mid afternoon, I do another protein shake, which is usually just again, a little more coconut milk, you know, 20 to 30 grams of protein mixed with, you know, in a big blender with again, avocado, spinach, blueberries, sometimes chicken chia and flax. So that I'm just on my A game, which is really important. I supplement with HPX Optimize, which many of you guys know, I take from my own mental clarity and brain optimization. It's called HPX Optimize. We'll put a link to it down below. It's my supplement I developed for greater high performance mindset. Like to get creative, to get mentally focused without caffeine. That's really important. I rarely have caffeine backstage unless like it's emergency status. Matter of fact, maybe for the first six or seven years I never had any caffeine at any of my events until I had my brain injury in 2011. And I realized sometimes if my brain doesn't kick over, which can happen in the mornings, I'll have some caffeine, maybe like a green tea's worth like 40 milligrams. But I don't drink green tea. I'll take it from a pre workout energizer. I do not drink any hot waters backstage or at my event at all. Not in the morning, not afternoon, not at night. Do not drink hot water if you have to sustain vocal performance. Because remember, like your vocal, you know, your vocal cords are down another tube in your back of your throat next to your esophagus. And what happens is, is if you drink a lot of hot water, it swells the tissue in your throat, which swells the nearby tissue, which swells the vocal cords. And remember your vocal cords, if you lose your voice, it's because your vocal cords got inflamed because they're rubbing together. Like this is what your vocal cords look like when they're moving right now. And so if they get inflamed, they get puffy. The last thing you want to do is pour down hot water or anything. Acidic or anything with a lot of sugars. Let's see. You know, I drink a ton of water. I probably drink 10 to 12 liters of water at an event. Remember, if you go to the work. If you go to work, imagine if you spoke the entire time at work and you never stopped. That's kind of what I do. And so it's. It's, you know, over eight hours of speaking each day. So it's a lot of water. I drink electrolyte packets twice a day, which is really important to maintain that hydration. At lunchtime, I meditate, usually 15 to 20 minutes. I eat an unbelievable amount of tacos, usually chicken tacos or fish tacos, depending on where I'm at. And I literally mean a lot of food. I mean, I eat till I'm like, 120% full because I need so many calories to maintain the day and maintain the energy. I don't like eating that much, but it is a must. Dinner is usually a ton of veggies and salmon with, like, maybe some sweet potato or quinoa, depending on what the location has, where I'm at. Again, a ton of spinach and blueberries and avocado is always a secret for me. At dinner, I eat also, you know, until I'm full, plus 130%, you know, 130% total. Like, if I'm full at 100%, I'll still eat more because I just need to pound the calories. Then after dinner, I'll do stretching and mobility work. I'll meet with the team. If I have to do some more stretching, mobility work, then it's the ice bath, which, many of you guys know, I've done for so long and kind of made me famous at my events, are all like, how do you maintain this energy? The ice bath is critical for that. I'll fill up, you know, 10 bags of ice. You know, if you're in a hotel and you got those little ice holders, imagine putting like, 30 of those in the bathtub, filling the water up, 10 to 12 cups of Epsom salt to not only get some magnesium in the body, but also to really just keep that water temperature so cold. So when I get out of the ice bath, you know, nine or 10, nine to 12 minutes later, there's still a layer of ice on me. Like, it's. It's cold. However, please, if you're listening, do not try an ice bath without medical supervision, advice from the doctor, especially at that level. You know, to get in a serious ice bath for nine to 12 minutes. I mean, that's cold. People always ask, why do you do that? It knocks out the inflammation from my body, removes all soreness, and it also helps me really sleep at night as well. It's incredibly powerful because basically your body thinks it's dying. So it sucks all of the. You know, the. The blood from your extremities up into your heart releases a ton of hormones to repair and keep you alive. And then, of course, you survive the ice bath. The blood rushes back out, which helps kind of knock out inflammation in the body. And all those hormones are amazing for repair. Let's see, after dinner and that night, there's no social media, no email, no work. I just try to wind down. I've been with hundreds or thousands of people all day. I just get my head relaxed in a good place so I can deliver. So that's basically at the event, after the event, it's usually I go disappear somewhere. Today I'm, you know, in Puerto Rico. After three days of recovery, my recovery. What's it look like? First day, second day, and third day, I do not speak at all. I mean, I'm not a peep. I don't whisper. Even if with my wife, my Denise, you know, I just text her, and we're texting, and we're an amazing couple of charades because of that. And so three days after my events, I just don't speak because I'm repairing my vocal cords. And I mean, I do not whisper. I don't say anything. I would say that's the hardest part of it all, because, you know, I want to talk to friends and family and celebrate. But to remember, I do eight events per year. I do six to ten videos a day or a week. My vocal cords is my career, so I have to repair them. And so I still sound good after, you know, 10 years of talking. Wait, no. 16 years at this career. It also has become something I really appreciate, you know, being silent because, you know, eight events per year, three days silent, that's 24 days in complete silence each day or each year. And what it's helped me do is it's become meditative almost, you know, that's 24 days of. Almost a full month in total silence each year. It helps reset things. It helps me relax and reflect. It's a powerful practice for me. Let's see, without. I think that's about it. And I just share this with you all because I think it's important that it gives context to how hard it is, what I do, because a lot of people don't see that. You see the people clapping on social media and getting excited. But you don't realize I'm training academically validated curriculum, you know, over five days. To my knowledge, there's not another trainer in the world who puts that many hours on the stage at one event by themselves without an emcee, without showing videos or bringing other trainers on or other speakers. And especially maybe there are, but they might be leading retreats or spirituality things or something like that. But five days of high performance training at the level of energy. If you've ever seen me teach or train, if you guys ever been with me live, you see it's 1000% energy. It's a thousand percent more than you see me do on video. Plus, you know, it's on a stage, it's, you know, 35 to 40ft long. And so it's constantly, I'm back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, down in the audience, down in the audience, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth for five full days. Let's just say it's super intense, but I also love it. And I developed all these routines over the last decade so that I can be at my best. You know, I really protect my time and my energy so that I can perform well. And I share all these things not to say, look at me, I share all these things to say, listen, have a real level of discipline about your routines and your habits that protect your mindset and your ability to perform at high levels. Make sure that you have a recovery routine in place. You know, I not only don't spend for three days, but you know, I spend a lot of time meditating and walking and just light activity. I don't do a lot of hard workout in the three days after recovery. It's not until maybe today that I'll start my two by twos again, which is, you know, doing two 60 minute cardio activities a day, or I'm sorry, a week, two 60 minute activity cardios a week and two very aggressive workouts where they're hiit training or heavy weight bearing activities. That's my two by twos, but I won't begin that until today. And so it's a lot of discipline in the recovery as well, which I really want to give to you all. I know you had a big year, I know you've been pushing hard. So take your recovery seriously at this time of year. Like, you know, as hard as you're going to be going and you know, you know, with all the holidays and everything coming up. I know it's easy to abuse your body and to burn out, but don't burn out at the end of the year. Change your pace, make sure you recover because we need you performing at your best this next year and this next decade. So I hope that serves you all, inspires you to develop your own routines to protect your performance and to develop better recovery mechanisms so you can be on your A game all year long. To those who came out this year to any of my events and you saw that output and that level of discipline required, I appreciate you tremendously. This work helping you tap into your personal development, helping you tap into your personal growth, helping you reach higher performance in every area of your life. I live for this, I strive for this, I practice this and I do this every day with true respect and honor and joy in my heart that I get to do this for you all. I'll try to do some more sit down vlogs like this for you throughout this next year. It's one of my goals personally to perform better for you all. Again, I appreciate you. If I see you out on the road until I see you next time, please go out there every single day of your life, live fully, love openly and go make a difference today. Hey all, I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, would you please smash that subscribe button and also post any questions you have down below. Because it's these questions that you're all asking that inspires these episodes. I'd love to hear what you what you think about it. Also, if you would love to join us on our next upcoming Live training. We call it our High Performance Experience Coaching Program. If you like some coaching and have some perspective and get some two hours of live with me every single month, then click the link in the post down below so you can join us in HPX Coaching. I'd love to give you some more strategies, more insight and more interaction to help you reach your next level of success. Until next time. Again, please subscribe share this video with anybody who could be inspired by it today and thanks one more time for being part of my community.